Anoushka Shankar says father's demise gave her space to speak about abuse: 'I lost my greatest musical collaborator'

Time of India

09-07-2025

Renowned sitar player
Anoushka Shankar
is opening up about how the passing of her father and mentor, the legendary Pandit
Ravi Shankar
, in December 2012, deeply affected her. In an interview with Barkha Dutt, Anoushka stated, 'So I lost my greatest musical collaborator, I lost my teacher, and then of course we had this Grammy experience going on.
There was also a whole other aspect happening for me, which I connected to major life events that, technically, weren't related."
At a time the round the nation was reeling in shock over the
Nirbhaya case
. Speaking about the same, she recalled, "Five days after my father passed away, the Nirbhaya attack happened. I was already deep in the grief of losing my father when that news broke. And so, for me, I can never think about one without the other, because they both intensified something within me, this trauma bubble of grief, anger, and outrage.
It was all one thing, really.'
Shankar said that it was a time when her personal grief and the country's anger over the Nirbhaya case came together, creating a wave of intense emotions. Known for her bold music and strong voice on social issues, she admitted that the closeness of these two events left a deep and lasting impact on her mind.
She further openly spoke about how people often thought her life was easy just because she was the daughter of the legendary Ravi Shankar.
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Many assumed she had a privileged life and an easy start in music. But she said the truth was very different and much more complicated.
'I had a very fortunate upbringing. I had a lot of incredible things in my life. But one of the narratives that, as a human and as a young woman in the press, used to rankle me was this idea that I'd just had a charmed life, that I had a silver spoon, that nothing bad had ever happened to me, and that I'd just swanned into this industry.
And you know, sexual abuse… as I say, everyone has a spectrum. It's not like that was the only thing.
But when you carry a big wound like that, and it's a secret, it feels very disjointed from how you're seen, compared to how you actually feel as a human being.'
Looking back, Anoushka said that the timing of her decision to speak publicly about her personal experiences may have been influenced by her father's death. She felt that after he passed away, she had more freedom to share her story openly.
While her father was aware of what she had gone through, she felt that any pain he might have felt from her speaking about it publicly was no longer a concern. At that time, she was deeply grieving and wasn't thinking too much.
She also reflected on how the Nirbhaya case became a major turning point, not just in her own life, but also in the global conversation about gender-based violence. She said it was the first time she could remember the entire world focusing on one story of sexual violence.
According to her, it felt like a rare moment when people everywhere were united in outrage. She saw it as an important opportunity to raise awareness and believed that any effort, no matter how small, to keep the conversation going and make a difference, truly mattered.
'That narrative really showed me how much misapprehension there is around who this can happen to, and how universal it is. And so I knew that with my story, regardless of how much detail I chose to share or not share, if people thought of me as the person with the silver spoon, the person who had it all, then for me to say, 'Uh-uh, me too. This happens everywhere. This can happen to anyone,' that felt really important to me, she added to the conversation.
"